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Krieger: Suspicion infects CU football program

Before Saturday's epic collapse at Kansas, CU didn't have to fire head football coach Dan Hawkins until season's end. The Buffs weren't going anywhere anyway. They just had to hit the ground running with a new coach the next day.

Since KU's astounding 35-point fourth quarter, a toxic level of suspicion has infected the CU program, and now Hawkins' motives will be questioned with every play call until his pink slip is delivered.

"The negativity has just grown to a point where it's a challenge on many fronts," a CU insider told me Sunday. "The factors are lining up pretty clearly right now."

The Hawk Watch is no longer about which week. It's about which day. It could be today. And it ought to be.

Let me quickly add that the suspicion infecting the program requires a highly uncharitable interpretation of circumstantial evidence. Neither Hawkins nor his son, Cody, the team's starting quarterback, has given us any reason to question his integrity over the past five years. In the case of Cody, who has handled a difficult situation with more maturity than many of us would have at his age, the suspicions seem particularly cruel.

Nevertheless, inexplicable play-calling and the elder Hawkins' refusal to explain much of anything have raised two suspicions that could do the program long-term damage:

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• In search of a rationale for head-scratching play-calling that kept giving the ball back to Kansas during Saturday's nightmarish fourth quarter, some fans are openly wondering whether Dan Hawkins' top priority is winning or getting his son the CU career passing record on his way out the door.

• In search of a rationale for allowing Hawkins to continue coaching as his program disintegrates around him, it's been suggested that CU can't fire Dan because Cody is the Buffs' only healthy quarterback and might walk out with his dad.

Insiders assure me that Cody's possible reaction to his father's firing is only one of many considerations and not a major one. Personally, I think there is zero chance that Cody quits on his teammates with three games remaining and no other experienced quarterback on the roster, no matter what happens with his father.

And frankly, even if he did, an inexperienced quarterback playing out the string on a lost season would be better for CU than the perception that Hawkins & Son are holding the university hostage.

The choice is not to keep Dan around for Cody's benefit or burn freshman Nick Hirsch man's redshirt. Hirsch man isn't ready anyway. If worse comes to worst, the Buffs could go with freshman walk-on Justin Gorman or emergency quarterbacks Scotty McKnight or Kyle Cefalo, receivers who played some quarterback in high school. It wouldn't be pretty, but hey, the Buffs aren't exactly painting a Monet as it is.

Similarly, the only evidence that Dan Hawkins kept calling pass plays in the fourth quarter at Kansas to pad his son's stats is Hawkins' refusal to offer another explanation. Even insiders wondered why Cody Hawkins was taking snaps with 20 seconds left on the play clock and throwing long, dangerous out patterns while frittering away a 28- point lead.

With the younger Hawkins now third on the CU career passing list behind Joel Klatt and Kordell Stewart, some fans jumped to a predictable conclusion. The elder Hawkins can protest that this is unfair, but it's the price he pays for building his program around his son.

In fact, there's another explanation that goes to Hawkins' uneven recruiting and wacky play-calling rather than his integrity. It's not just that he's down to one healthy quarterback. He's also down to one healthy running back. The 5-foot-6, 175-pound Rodney Stewart had a great game Saturday, but after 27 carries for 175 yards and three touchdowns, he was out of gas when the Buffs needed to run clock at the end.

Hawkins could have explained this if he hadn't abandoned his commitment to public accountability weeks ago. He cut off his postgame radio interview with KOA after two questions and two cliches. He cut off his postgame session with reporters after a slightly longer but no more edifying exchange.

It is a measure of the elder Hawkins' current standing that recruiting failures and oblivious play-calling are the more flattering explanation for his team's unraveling. If he is permitted to coach the final three games, every pass thrown by his son will be suspect, and the passing yardage record, should Cody get it, will be tainted.

Better to let the younger Hawkins finish under an interim coach whose motives are above suspicion. Better to end the melodrama now, before it spirals further out of control.

One-day event to run slide down University HillIt's not quite the alternative mode of transportation that Boulder's used to, but, for one day this summer, residents will be able to traverse several city blocks atop inflatable tubes.